Vignette City 50.

*** ‘Vignette City’ is an ongoing project of daily writing and urban photography ***

The Painter had never received any formal training and possessed no innate talent, as such his work was predictably terrible.

He did however save a little girl from a burning building one time and that gained him some local notoriety, which really elevated his profile.

What really happened with the little girl was that The Painter was walking from his apartment to the grocery store because he had only minutes before convinced himself to go on a diet, so he had thrown out all of the food in his apartment and so he was going to buy a bunch of salad and fruit and as he was walking along he was mumbling the names of fruit to himself, saying, “Mangos. Lemons. Gooseberries. Pomelos. Apricots. Avocados …” and that was when he heard the little girl crying and he looked over and saw that she was standing in the doorway of her apartment building and that was when the Painter realized that the building was on fire and so he said, “Hey kid, you better get out of there. The place is on fire.”

The little girl shook her head violently, her pigtails swinging around in the air. “My mom says I can’t go outside without her.”

“Well where’s she at?”

“She’s at work.”

“Well look kid, this is what’s called an ‘extenuating circumstance’. You ever heard of those before?”

The little girl shook her head. “You’re a stranger!” She yelled.

That was the same moment a chunk of burning building fell into the street behind The Painter.

“Look kid, this is getting serious, so get your ass out here.”

“You said a bad word!”

The smoke was starting to get thicker now but still there were no sirens yet, so The Painter stepped over toward the girl and he reached down and tried to grab her. He had no experience with children, but he had a cat, so he employed a similar strategy grabbing at her under her little arms, but she shriek, “Put me down! Stranger danger!” Her arms were flailing and her little feet were kicking and her pig tails were looping through the air like nunchucks.

“Would you just stop doing that?” The Painter said.

One of her little hands connected right across his nose and they both heard a fat snap and he shouted and she froze, realizing what she’d done and suddenly fascinated by the river of blood pouring out of The Painter’s face.

“Dammit kid!” He shouted at her and swung her under his arm like she was a big log he was carrying. Another chunk of building fell into the street and The Painter yelled at her, “This is stupid and I should have let your ungrateful little ass burn to death!”

The Painter struggled to carry her out of the doorway and into the street and it was just then that a photographer from the local paper run up on the scene, lifted his camera to his eye and snapped the picture: The Painter, his face aggrieved and covered in blood, carrying the little girl under his arm as burning debris rained from the sky around them. It was a great shot. The photographer would go on to win all of the regional photojournalism awards that year. Days later The Mayor would give The Painter a key to the city and during his acceptance speech the Painter would plug the website where he sold his paintings. The little girl would later tell her mother, “I didn’t mean to hit him, but he deserved it.” Her mother didn’t care. She kissed the little girl on the head and said, “You’re my girl. I just love you so much.”

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